Monday, March 13, 2017

Birding in Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge

It's been almost 4 months since my last birding outing. Since I did not get a chance to look at any waterfowl in Hagerman this winter I thought I will try my luck before all the waterfowl leave for the summer.

Started home early at 6AM and reached the refuge center by 7:30AM. The access road to refuge center is laid new. When I reached I could already see people looking for birds and some of the folks with fishing lines in the water too. I did not see any Geese on the fields. The first pool I checked had good number of ducks. It had Shovelers, Blue-winged teals, Gadwalls and Coots. There were lot of ducks around but not in the same number as we see in December and January.

I could see Shovellers, Blue-winged teals, Green-winged teals and Coots everywhere. I saw only one Pintail among all these other ducks. There were lot of Wilson's snipes and few Yellowlegs scattered across the pools too.

Blue-winged Teal

Ross's Goose?

Shoveller

I saw a group of Pelicans at the back of the lake right next to a group of Terns. Just behind them I could see there were group of dowitchers too.

Wilson's Snipe

American Golden plover

Killdeer

Yellowlegs

Pelicans and Terns

After birding the lake decided to walk the Meadow pond trail. Just before I entered the trail, I did some birding right next to the gate. There I saw couple of nuthatches, lot of Yellow-rumped warblers and sparrows. The near by stream had a lone Belted Kingfisher too.

The walk on Meadow pond trail was great. I saw almost all the sparrows I had seen earlier(Savannah, Lincoln, Harris, Fox, Vesper and Chipping). It was great to see all these sparrows again. The other birds I saw on the trail were Brown Thrasher, lot of Ruby crowned Kinglets, Chickadees and Titmouses.

Red-bellied woodpecker

Northern Cardinal

White-breasted Nuthatch

Brown Creeper

Harris Sparrow

Vesper Sparrow

Lincoln Sparrow

White-throated Sparrow

Tufted Titmouse

Brown Creeper

After walking this trail I decided to try a Crow Hill Trail for the first time. And it was good idea to try this since I got to see first Black and White warbler for the season.